Our 19th and 20th Weeks ~ 2014

Since I completely missed last week's recap post, I have to bombard you with two weeks worth of photos.  Sorry!  I will keep the words to a minimum when possible.  :)

I am still participating in Fat Mum Slim's Photo a Day challenge, so that is what these are from ... (some days are missing because those are the days I used photos from my archives).

{May 5 - 4PM}

The idea was to take a photo at/around 4PM and share it, so that's what I did.  This picture was drawn by a friend of Keira's.  It is Keira in fairy form.

{May 6 - From down low}

I had this idea to lay on the ground and take a picture up at the kids.  Keira was having a bad day that day and wasn't all that smiley.  And Alex is a little out of focus because I should have closed down my aperture.  Oh well, I still like this pic of them.

{May 7 - Taken from above}

A grape hyacinth.

{May 8 - Blue}

I was pressed for time and having a mental block, so blue food coloring in a vase of water would have to suffice.  :)

{May 11 - Mother}

My mom and sister came to visit on Mother's Day. Linda brought a bunch of old photos with her, at my request, so we spent some time looking through them and reminiscing.  We found my mom's senior photo and since the prompt was mother, I had her hold her senior photo from 1954.

{May 12 - Ready}

Our Painted Lady caterpillars were all in chrysalis as of Friday, May 9.  Not quite ready to join us as butterflies yet.  This particular one had fallen when I was transferring them from the cup to the butterfly house.  I looked up what to do and Google said it should be fine - just to lay it on a paper towel.  Thank you, Google!  :)

{May 13 - I spy}

I spy ... the face of an old man.  Alex sees a smiley face.  What do you see?

{May 14 - Lines}

There are lines all around us.  We just need to look a little closer to see them sometimes.

{May 16 - Create}

Only God could create such a fascinating creature!  (This was the first Painted Lady butterfly to emerge.)

{May 17 - Bag}

Alex put our bean bag chair on his head and said, "Look, mom!  I have a big brain!"

A quick recap of the past two weeks (more for me than for you, so you can skip this if you'd like)  :) ... 
last Bible study of the year :(
Grandparents' Day at the boys' school
Keira's school concert
my mom stayed with us Tuesday evening through Thursday evening in order to attend Grandparents' day and Keira's school concert - I love having her but it throws me off my routine.  :)
Staff Luncheon at the boys' school - I helped shop for, prepare food, and serve - whew!
Prom photo shoot - FUN!
Keira had a strolling strings gig at Kids' Day America
Doug and I drove down to his chiropractor's office to take advantage of a big sale they were having on supplements and we were going to go out to dinner until we pulled in the parking lot and remembered it was Mother's Day weekend.  :)  So we ate at home.
Mother's Day at my house - gorgeous weather - also celebrated my niece's birthday
my van got serviced/inspected
Alex got sick for a day and a half
visited a local apple orchard, took some photos of the blossoms and got to meet the owner who was very nice
had to postpone two photo shoots on Saturday because of the rain (but got them both in on Sunday)
we sold Doug's Hyundai, now we only have the Lincoln to sell.

I think that's about it.  At least that's all I can remember at his point!  Hope your week is going great!

Linking with Tamar ...

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday 05.18.14

Time for another Scavenger Hunt Sunday!  Some weeks I set out to intentionally shoot for the prompts.  Others I just look through what I shot and try to make things fit.  I'll let you decide which kind of week you think this was.  :)

{animals}

During a visit to a local apple orchard, this horse (who I later found out belongs to the neighbors) kept a close eye on me while I walked around with my camera.  He was just one of the animals I encountered this week.  Along with a cat, a mouse, a mule, a donkey, some geese, and a couple ducks.

{in the shade}

On Mother's Day I wanted to be sure to get a photo of my mom with my sister and me.  My mom was concerned that we weren't in the shade and had the sun at our backs.  She didn't think it would make for a good photo.  I assured her that I have taught Keira well and that it would all work out.  Maybe that is why I am the photographer in the family.  :)

{from behind}

Keira was being inducted into the National Junior Honor Society on Monday evening.  She told me not to bring my camera to the ceremony because it was no big deal.  Of course, that goes against every fiber of my being, but I obliged and left the camera at home.  And I regretted that decision.  So I made her pose with her certificate once we got home.  While I was taking pics of her with her certificate, she asked me to take a picture of her hair from behind since she was pretty proud of the style she had done.  YouTube can be a wonderful thing.  :)

{on the ground}

We have had so much rain lately that it is harder to get down on the ground to take pictures.  Unless I want to get all wet and muddy.  But we do what we must to get the shot, right?

{bugs or blossoms}

I had a hard time choosing, so I included both bugs AND blossoms.  The blossom shot is from my time at the orchard.  The shot of Alex is just for fun, though he was using our new magnifying glass to observe one of our butterflies earlier.  And the butterfly shot is a close up of one of the Painted Ladies that emerged this week.  As I write this, we now have three butterflies with two more in chrysalis.  They look like they will be joining us on Sunday.

Thanks for stopping by!  If you are visiting on Sunday afternoon, I am out photographing a senior and then a maternity session.  And hoping the weather cooperates since we already had to reschedule due to rain.  Sneak peeks coming soon!

Be sure to stop over and visit our host, Ashley, and tell her hello!

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Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today, February 12 is not only Abraham Lincoln's birthday.  It is also my mom's birthday.  I won't tell you her age, as she probably wouldn't appreciate that.  But I will tell you some things about her.

Her name is Elizabeth Ruth.  Named after her mother Ruth Elizabeth.

My dad's name was John.  I can remember when we were kids and would go to bed, we'd shout out, "Good night, John Boy!  Good night, Lizbeth!"

The oldest of three kids, she is now the only of those three children still alive.  Unfortunately, her sister passed away a few years ago and her brother passed away just last year.

She was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

She married my dad in 1959.  They had five children together, of which, I am the baby.

Some time after my two oldest brothers were born, they moved north of Pittsburgh.  They left the city and bought a farm.  A few years after that, they sold that farm and bought a bigger farm.  57 acres.  That's where I grew up.

She lost her husband to lung cancer in 1985.  I was just 15 when my dad died.  She never remarried.

She is a cancer survivor of 25+ years.

She has nine grandchildren.  Ironically enough, her youngest grandchild belongs to her oldest child, my brother, David.

She loves Bingo.  And playing cards.  UNO has become a favorite when she visits, because my kids can play along also.

She has a knack for remembering useless information.  And telling us some of that information during our visits.  We joke with her about it.  And we also joke that we know where my 10 year old, Nick, gets his ability to remember useless information from.  :)  They are two peas in a pod.

She is a sweet, loving woman, who I think the world of.

And I love her dearly.

Happy birthday, Mom!  Here's to many, many more happy birthdays!

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday 12.01.13

Hello!  I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving!  Can you believe that it's December?  Time is passing by quickly.  Summer will be here again before we know it!  At least I hope! :)

I want to shout out a big THANK YOU to Sarah Halstead for designing my new watermark that you'll see in these photos!  If you are like me and haven't a clue how to do that yourself and are in the market, I highly recommend her.  She was very patient and flexible with me.  :)

{starts with s}

SNOW!  And lots of it!  

{texture}

I picked up a new textured rug this week for inside our front door.  Honey was nice enough to try it out for me right away.  :)

{a blessing}

These kids are such a blessing to me.  My three kids with my two nieces had a fun time together on Thanksgiving day.

{warmth}

Warmth to me is time spent with family.  Like my sister and my mom.  It has been a while since we had a picture of the three of us together.  I made sure to remedy that on Thanksgiving day while they were here.

{i went ...}

I went to our local parade/light up night with the kids last night.  We walked behind our church's float in the parade (which, by the way, won Best Overall for a non-profit by the judges!) and handed out candy canes and invitations to our Christmas play.  Then we served hot chocolate to anyone who would accept it.  :)  We had fun, even though we were freezing the whole time.  My boys drank way more hot chocolate than any one person should.  In fact, Alex has chocolate on his nose in this picture.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you have a wonderful week!

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Memories, Dreams, and Reflections 2012

Happy New Year!  I hope 2013 brings you an abundance of God's blessings!  That you don't keep all to yourself but pass along to others as well!

Before moving forward, it is often good to look back.  Ashley gives us that opportunity with her Memories, Dreams, and Reflections photo challenge.  It is always hard to narrow down just one photo to go with each category, but I finally managed it.

So without further ado, here's my look back at 2012 ... 

{me}

Yep, that's me getting crispy on a beach watching my babies play in the water.  :)

{i love you}

I had Keira take a photo of Doug and me on our 16th wedding anniversary in November.

{still laughing}

Our sweet Honey was entranced by an abandoned worm nest in the neighbor's tree.  She stared at it, growled at it, and jumped up at it for quite some time.  It still makes me chuckle to look at these pictures.

{winter wonderland}

This was actually just taken on Saturday.  Yep, we're in the middle of a winter wonderland right now.

{birthday}

We took pictures for Keira's 14th birthday a few weeks late.  But we had a lot of fun when we finally did.

{friends}

Parades are always more fun when shared with friends.

{i was inspired}

I can't name exactly who inspired this hazy photo, but I was excited to capture it (in camera, not in processing).

{spring fever}

The trees were absolutely gorgeous in the spring.

{travel or vacation}

We took a day - before school started back up - to have some fun at the beach.

{summer days}

Our summers are pretty laid back - swimming, playing at the park, or looking for crayfish in a local creek.

{a day in my life}

I actually did a blog post back in January on a typical day in my life.  Back when Alex was still in afternoon Kindergarten and was my buddy each morning.  This is one of the collages I made.

{all smiles}

Alex wanted a picture with his new Polar Express cargo car.  He was all smiles after getting it.

{autumn harvest}

We know it is fall when we get to attend our county's annual farm tour.

{family or home}

Taken on New Year's Eve ... me and the kiddos celebrating at home.  We couldn't talk Daddy into getting in the picture with us.

{celebrate!}

Alex and I celebrated Independence Day in Children's Hospital this year.  However, we had a really good view of the city's fireworks display.

{let's do it again}

This was a hard prompt because many of the things we did, photography wasn't allowed.  But we did squeeze in a show (How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular) this summer - between the hospital stay and school starting - and we look forward to going to another one.

{i miss you}

My nephew, Kyle, is a marine and is currently stationed in California.  We did get to see him for Christmas this year though.

{beautiful}

One of the senior photo shoots I did this fall was of Anna.  She is a beautiful girl, inside and out.

{dress up}

My friend, Laura, took this picture.  She had Keira and Nick over for a few hours during the time Alex and I were in Children's Hospital.  For some reason when our kids get together, they end up playing dress up.  :)

{macro}

For some reason this was the first time I took a macro shot of one of the Monarch butterflies we raise each summer.

{holidays}

We host the holidays at our house now.  Which means I do most of the work, although I don't mind.  My mom usually helps out a lot and this year at Thanksgiving I wanted to be sure to document that.  Thanks, Mom!

{my favorite}

Another tough one.  How do you pick ONE favorite photo from among thousands?!?!

I picked this one because it is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity - to see the Penguins on Parade at the zoo.

{don't ever change}

My baby girl is growing into a beautiful, smart young lady.

{just because ... so there!}

We had the privilege of seeing the sweet baby gorilla that was born at the zoo this past February.  Unfortunately he only lived about 3 months, which makes this photo even more precious to me.

{hopes and dreams}

I have so many hopes and dreams for my babies.  Too many to list here.  But one for certain ... that they continue to grow strong in the Lord.

Happy New Year!

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